


Renegade Paragon

by AmyNChan



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: I was so conflicted, When a paragon makes a renegade choice, had to write this out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 19:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16046849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyNChan/pseuds/AmyNChan
Summary: She let him take the shot.





	Renegade Paragon

Her Carnifex rested on the table.  It hadn’t moved since she’d placed it there.  Neither had she.  And even though she knew better, it felt like nothing had.

Commander Shepard was in her room aboard the Normandy as it continued its course, her head rested on clasped fingers, her eyes shut tight against the universe.  To those who may not have known the commander, they might have believed that they had intruded on a moment of spirituality.  Of prayer.  Of faith.

In truth, this was a moment of prolonged turmoil.  She had held it off when she, Garrus, and Grunt had ridden the shuttle car back into Zakera Ward.  She had held it off when she had heard the news about the investigation.  She had held it off when they were riding back to the ship.  Once on the Normandy, everyone had gone their separate ways.  Grunt to the cargo hold, Garrus to the main battery, and she to her room.  She would hold it off no longer.  She had to face the situation and the emotions it caused her now.

Sidonis had stood directly in front of her, every bit as cowardly as Garrus had anticipated.  Garrus felt he had been unrepentant.  That he deserved the “justice” that had been delivered to the back of his head as he ran.  And as it was Garrus’s men who had been killed, Garrus’s resolution that had been needed, she had helped to facilitate his revenge.

But _she_ had seen the hollow shell of a man.  He had been cowardly, but also already dead.  He had been dead long before Garrus pulled the trigger.  He had been a dead man walking in a hollow shell.  Already living a coward’s hell on the run.  She wished that Garrus could have seen that before pulling the trigger.

But she had only stood by and let Garrus kill him.  Let Garrus give him the way out that he did not deserve.  Sidonis was not given even a chance to repent, explain, or face what he had done.  There was no justice in what Sidonis had faced, only death.  Death that had come on the wings of a dark archangel.

The action went against everything she stood for.  The ‘hero of Elysium’, the ‘savior of the Citadel’.  The woman who stuck to her guns and worked to find another solution no matter the cost…who did her best to enforce the painful justice of the living and had had to be strong-armed, indebted, and forced to see the larger threat in order to work with Cerberus…had let her friend commit murder on a man who, in her opinion, hadn’t been worth the ammo.  He should have been left to continue living in this hell of existence.

Instead, she felt as though she had sent Garrus to that living hell she reserved for the worst.  The hell she tried to keep all of her team from tripping into.

Did she let Jacob kill Ronald Taylor?  The man who abandoned his family, took power, abused it, abused the crew that trusted him to return them home, and then cowardly attempted to hide from fair retribution?  No.  He hadn’t been worth the money on the shot.

Did she let Miranda kill Niket?  The man who had betrayed Miranda’s trust, who had willingly put Oriana in danger, and who had allowed his loyalty to be sold away without the benefit of an explanation from his friend?  No.  She knew Miranda would have regretted killing her oldest friend.

Did she let Mordin kill Maelon?  The student who defied everything his teacher stood for, who filled the krogan with false hope and experimented on them ruthlessly in the name of the ‘greater good’?  No.  Mordin wasn’t a murderer, much less a murderer of those he had once cared about.

Time after time, she could have let her teammates get away with it.  Everyone on the team knew that Cerberus had enough clout to let them get away with murder.  But time after time, she had stopped them from committing the crime they would have brought themselves to regret.  Each person on her team was a good person, and each person would have eventually brought themselves to regret the action of hot-blooded murder.  Their targets had each faced the retribution they deserved: jail, death, exile.

And yet she had let Sidonis become the victim of Garrus’s hate.  She stepped aside and let Garrus take the shot.

Garrus was the one person on her crew she _knew_ without a shadow of a doubt.  She _knew_ him.  Knew him from the days of Saren, from their last mission together where they discussed getting a job done right or getting it done quickly.  She knew his perspective had changed, if only a little bit, and she supposed it showed with just how long he had planned his revenge.  She supposed that also showed just how personally he took the deaths of his teammates.  His sense of justice, his intensity and loyalty…  She knew just how black-and-white he could take situations.  Grey wasn’t an area of justice he appreciated or even thought about most of the time—it was always punishment for the wrongdoer.  And the most extreme punishment at that.  This was in-character for him.  Not as hot-blooded as two years earlier, but just as reckless…

And for his sake, she hoped that he felt like he’d done something good by the memory of his team in sending Sidonis to join them in whatever afterlife existed.

Because she sure as hell didn’t.

Her mind wandered to the one thing he could have possibly said to her that finally persuaded her to stop attempting to convince him that what he was doing was _wrong_.

_“I know you don’t like it, Shepard, but I have to do this.”_

She didn’t feel her nails dig into the sides of her clasped fingers.

_“Is there no other way?”_

_“Maybe.  But this is personal.”_

She pressed her forehead into her knuckles, going over the conversation.  And the consequences…  the consequences…

_“I’ll pull the trigger.  And I’ll live with the consequences.”_

She’d _known_ better than that.  She’d known that he wouldn’t be the only one facing consequences.  She knew from experience that consequences didn’t always follow pulling a trigger.  And yet she hadn’t said so.

_“What would you do if someone betrayed you?”_

She’d said nothing.  She’d allowed him his anger.  Part of her—a very large part of her—wishes she hadn’t.

But she knows exactly why she had. 

Garrus _knew her_.  He knew exactly what she thought about his vengeance.  She had made a point to spend the time they spent chasing Sidonis’s trail attempting to dissuade him from his intention.  He had had her thoughts on the subject, and that was all she could do for him in good conscience.

She’d kept him from shooting Harkin, but keeping him from taking the shot on Sidonis would have been going too far.  It would have been taking away his choice completely.  She had tried to change his mind, but at the end of the day, it had been Garrus’s choice.  And he had chosen his vengeance.  He had fired the shot, Sidonis was dead, and they were still chasing the Collectors.

Shepard exhaled, slowly releasing her breath, slowly unfurling her hands, slowly lifting her head.  Garrus was a trusted team member and friend.  He said that he would be the one to bear the consequences concerning Sidonis.   And he would.  She, as a commander and friend, would bear the consequences concerning Garrus.

She stood, rolling her neck and shoulders.  She could do nothing for the dead. Their time in this limited existence was done.  Sidonis had had his two years of earthly hell before Garrus had caught up to him.  The terror, the running, maybe even the guilt, he had been subject to it all.  Any way you looked at it, the man paid for his crimes.  In life, in death.  But now it was over.  The entire situation was over.  The only thing she could do now was look out for Garrus, make sure his consequences wouldn’t push him into a place she tried to keep him from.

The Sidonis situation dealt with, Shepard exited her cabin.  She needed to check on her friend.

 


End file.
